This essay explores the implications of historicising John Rawls’s theory of justice. While historical research on Rawls and his social context has provided valuable insights, some scholars argue that historicising carries significant philosophical consequences. This paper critically examines one such argument that contends that historicising Rawls’s theory demonstrates its contextual nature, undermines its diagnostic powers, and leads to its complete dissolution. We offer a reconstruction of this argument and show that it fails. Further, while we argue that this argument fails, we go on to suggest that historical evidence may contribute to a defensive argument against appeals to expert opinion. By examining the appropriate relationship between historical research and philosophy, this essay contributes to the evaluation of the historicist critique and offers insights into the broader role of historical research in philosophical discourse.

This article sets out to describe and solve two puzzles that emerge in segregated labour markets (e.g. the USA or Sweden). First, in many hiring contexts people profess to adhere to egalitarian norms, and specifically to a qualification norm according to which job qualification should be the basis of employment. Still there is evidence of frequent norm violations (discrimination). Surprisingly, the norm persists and people do not frequently protest against such norm violations. The second puzzle is that people are suspicious of the hiring of minorities, perceiving such hirings as evidence that a 'political correctness' norm has replaced the qualification norm. The article proposes that both puzzles can be solved within a game-theoretical model of social norm-following, where implicit bias is introduced into an 'employment game'. Within this model, implicit bias plays a double role. First, it interferes with employers' hiring decisions regarding ethnic majority and minority members, respectively. This is the standard way of understanding the effects of implicit bias. Second, implicit bias interferes with bystander evaluations of hired candidates' qualifications. This is a hitherto overlooked effect of implicit bias. The article concludes that once we understand the double role of implicit bias, the two puzzles are resolved.

Among scholars dedicated to Search for Extra-terrestrial Intelligence (SETI), the risks and possibilities of actively contacting extra-terrestrials (Active SETI) have been widely discussed. Yet, some fundamental philosophical problems concerning the possibility of translating an alien language have hardly been raised in this context. The proponents of Active SETI assume that, abswould an extra-terrestrial intelligent (ETI) entity choose to contact us, they would use radio signals to convey a coded message that would be possible for us to decode and translate. Furthermore, they argue, were we to transmit a message, then this message would also be possible to translate. However, any interstellar message would, for obvious reasons, be conveyed without context and without the possibility of meaningful interaction over timescales relevant to us. According to the most influential research program in the philosophy of language, the meaning of an utterance is derived from its use in a context and is not intrinsic to the utterance by which it was conveyed. Therefore, while radical translation, i.e. learning an unknown language, is possible, it requires contextualized interaction. Only then can semantic behavior be observed, and utterances linked to meaning. Thus, merely an exchange of signals cannot produce meaningful communication. If this claim is true, there are important game-theoretical consequences of interstellar contact. An informal game theoretical analysis of this scenario, A Game of Stars, is described. This analysis suggests that the lack of communication may lead players into a Hobbesian Trap, where fear impels the players to a risk dominant strategy, potentially resulting in mutual destruction. Our conclusion is that interstellar contact is an underestimated existential risk. If true and given the relative ease of contacting an ETI given the knowledge of its location, information about the existence and location of an ETI would be very dangerous to spread. Thus, knowledge of an ETI and its location would constitute an information hazard.

This essay defends a rational reconstruction of a genealogical debunking argument that begins with the premise that's just what the economic elite want you to believe and ends in the conclusion you should lower your confidence in your belief. The argument is genealogical because it includes a causal explanation of your beliefs; it is debunking because it claims that the contingencies uncovered by the genealogy undermine your beliefs. The essay begins by defending a plausible causal explanation of your belief in terms of the wants of the elite. Then a number of recent objections to genealogical debunking arguments are considered. It is argued that the genealogy offered in the first part constitutes evidence that a testimony-based belief is not safe and therefore does not constitute knowledge if the economic elite wants you to believe it.

It has been argued that rational choice theory is unable to explain the occurrence of social revolutions. This paper argues that if social revolutions are modeled in an evolutionary setting it is possible to predict when revolutions occur. It is shown that revolutions are expected to occur when regimes lose their determination to punish revolutionary activity early and severely. In the process of constructing the model some results about public good provision are generalized.

This essay is concerned with two explanations of why oppressive social orders persist. According to the first, the so-called gunman theory of oppression (GT), these social orders persist because the oppressed are afraid being punished if they participated in a revolt. According to the second, the so-called ideology theory of oppression (IT), oppression persists because the oppressed are subject to ideology. Traditionally, the former has been associated with rational choice theory, and the latter with Marxism and critical theory. Analytical philosophers have been suspicious of IT since it involves functional claims. This essay shows that it is possible to make sense of both IT and its associated functional claim within the framework of rational choice theory. Chapter one provides an overview of the discussion and a presentation of the general argument against IT. Chapter two specifies the explanandum for the two theories in more detail. The chapter concludes with a description of three real-life persistent oppressive social orders. In chapter three, the basics of rational choice theory are introduced and GT spelled out. Some problems for the theory are identified and then dealt with. It is concluded that GT does a good job at explaining the persistence of tyrannies. Chapter four argues that ideology is necessary to provide satisfactory explanations of the other two cases of oppression described in chapter two. The chapter concludes with a specification of IT where the functional claim is made explicit. Chapter five defends Gerald Cohen's account of functional explanations against a dilemma formulated by Ann Cudd. In chapter six, three mechanisms are provided that indicate how the functional claim of IT can be demystified. Chapter seven concludes by indicating a statistical method for testing IT and describing some policy implications.

The role of groups has often been invoked as an explanation of how successful revolutions can be the outcome of rational action. This paper attempts to show that the focus on groups fails to incorporate an important aspect of oppression, namely the oppressive regime itself. If rational choice theory is to be taken seriously and if it is assumed that the potential revolutionaries are rational, then similar assumptions should be made about the despot. If this is done, then it is far from obvious that groups help to solve the free-rider problem. Rather it is shown that in this case the revolutionaries become subject to a higher order free-rider problem.